Cyclotron Emission from Plasmas with Non-Maxwellian Distributions

Abstract

Cyclotron emission from high-energy plasmas is calculated for two classes of electron distribution functions: (a) those that decrease monotonically with increasing electron energy, and (b) those that have one or more maxima displaced from zero energy. In (a) the emission does not differ greatly compared with the emission from a Maxwellian plasma of the same energy. In (b) the emission can grow exponentially with distance traversed in the plasma, resulting in a greatly enhanced loss of radiant power.